Still More Excuses for Women’s Rape of Boys

by Robert Franklin

I hope someone's keeping a list. Someday it could have a prominent position in the Buck Passers Hall of Fame.

This is another case of alleged statutory rape of a minor boy by his teacher, Carole Leigh Mayers (Delmarvanow.com, 2/4/09). Her defense this time is that he's now mature, so it must be OK for her to have violated statutory rape laws 2-3 years ago.

Never mind that it is for precisely that reason that statutory rape laws exist - to remove the defense of consent. The legal conceit is that the child is too young to understand and give consent to sex. Therefore, any claim that he's mature enough to have consented is irrelevant to the charge of statutory rape. It's just not an element of the crime.

And, as GlennSacks.com contributor Pierce Harlan has pointed out, we all know that girls mature physically and psychologically earlier than boys. So if statutory rape laws apply to girl victims, they should apply doubly to boys.

But none of that stopped this woman from moving to dismiss the charges. She's charged with 16 counts of sexual misconduct of various sorts with a boy who is now 17 but at the time of the alleged offenses was probably 14-16.

Another basis for her motion is that the boy is into porn, so somehow that excuses her behavior. It doesn't make sense to me, but I just report, you decide.

One of the more remarkable aspects of her claims is that the boy is now, at age 17, involved in a sexual relationship with another adult woman. How that should exonerate Mayers for what she allegedly did 2-3 years ago escapes me. It seems like its evidence of statutory rape by the second woman.

But what do I know?